Smart-E An Autonomous Omnidirectional Underwater Robot

Abstract

The survey of waterbodies or underwater installations is a challenging task. To reduce the danger for divers, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) can be deployed. These requires a high manoeuvrability and agility in order to provide access in hard-to-reach areas. Smart-E is an omnidirectional AUV designed and developed at the Institute of Computer Engineering of the University of Luebeck. The drive is realized by the minimal configuration of three thrusters that are arranged at 120• to each other. To achieve omnidirectional movement in the 3D space, each motor pivots through 180• around its radial axis with the aid of a servo motor. This leads to a manoeuvrability of six degrees of freedom (DOF). Smart-E is equipped with various sensors like a pressure and temperature sensor, a 360• scanning sonar, an IMU-AHRS system and a tilt camera unit at the bottom. Besides the autonomous behaviors, the main challenge is to control all six DOF of the AUV to achieve a smooth and controllable omnidirectional underwater movement even in rough environments.

Righting of Chinese Mitten Crabs (Eriocheir Sinensis) and Their Models

“…In order to verify, whether this new stabilizing system is an optimization compared to current methods, further Figure 6. Smart-E. Modern thruster-driven AUV, which is declared to be highly efficient [10].…”

“…At the current state of research no statement is possible, as there is no data about robotic devices, driven by thruster, available to compare it with. It would be worth to use an existing modern Robot like the AUV Smart-E [10], to compare the two mechanisms at the same chassis.…”

Reconfigurable propulsion systems for the inspection of off-shore power generation plants

“…For this kind of applications, the usage of pivoted thrusters should be a cheap and reliable solution, which are adopted in some innovative commercial products such as the Italian SeaStick [13], which is visible in Figure 4. In addition, pivoted thrusters have been recently used for research oriented vehicles such as the Smart E, developed by University of Luebeck, where three pivoted thrusters are used to control the six degree of freedom of spherical/saucer AUV [1], [2].…”

“…In existing solutions available in literature such as Smart E AUV, [1], [2], three pivoted thrusters are used to perform a holonomic control of the six degree of freedom of the AUV.…”

A robust propulsion layout for underwater vehicles with enhanced manoeuvrability and reliability features

“…14 Interesting solutions and studies are also available in scientific literature. An example, the Smart-E, described by the publications of Meyer et al 15 and Ehlers et al, 16 is shown in Figure 5: three pivoted thrusters are used to control all the 6 DOFs of the vehicle.…”